Data Products

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Tornado Climatology

December 27, 2012

This online resource examines tornado activity across the United States across temporal and spatial scales. The contiguous United States is the most active tornado region in the world, with an average of 1,253 tornadoes occurring annually. The information and data provided here serves as a baseline for comparing current tornado activity to the past, providing a complete historical perspective.

Severe Weather Data

December 20, 2012

This online resource provides links to several NOAA online severe weather databases, including the Storm Events Database and the Severe Weather Data Inventory. These databases provide online access to files for storm and hurricane data in commonly used formats, such as shapefiles for GIS applications, KMZ for Google Earth, comma-separated values, and extensible markup language (XML).

Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System Voyager

The Pacific Islands Ocean Observing System (PacIOOS) Voyager is an interactive map interface for visualizing and downloading oceanographic observations, forecasts, and other geospatial data and information related to the marine environment and beyond.

Asia-Pacific Data Research Center

The Asia-Pacific Data Research Center increases understanding of climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region by developing the computational, data management, and networking infrastructure necessary to make data resources readily accessible and usable to researchers and general users; and by undertaking data-intensive research activities that will both advance knowledge and lead to improvements in data preparation and data products.

Pacific Islands Climate Outlooks Catalog

Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program Data Products

The NOAA-funded Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) has developed a range of experimental and prototype tools to support climate-related decision-making and planning. These datasets and tools are designed to help increase resiliency and preparedness for weather and climate extremes now and in the future across the Southern-Central United States.

Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas

The Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas provides online answers to questions related to the physical environment, marine resources, and economic activity in the Gulf of Mexico. Information is presented in the form of map plates with descriptions, written by recognized subject matter experts, explaining how the data were gathered and how they are relevant. The Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas, prepared by NOAA, has data from federal, state and non-governmental agencies, and academia.

Climate Normals

Climate normals are the average values of meteorological parameters -- such as temperature, precipitation, frost/freeze data, and snowfall data -- over 30-year spans. The climate normals data help describe typical climate conditions for a given place and time of year, and are used as a baseline to which current conditions can be compared.

Blended Seawinds

National Solar Radiation Database

The National Solar Radiation Database contains 30 years (1961-1990) of solar radiation and supplementary meteorological data, and hourly solar radiation and meteorological data for 237 National Weather Service sites in the United States, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Also includes maps of the monthly amounts of solar power that could be generated with various solar collectors.

Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) Solar Energy Forecast

The LAPS system produces rapidly updated, high-resolution analyses and forecasts of solar radiation. The cloud analysis uses satellite, METARs, radar, aircraft, and model first guess information to produce an hourly 3-D field of cloud fraction, cloud liquid, and cloud ice. The cloud analysis and satellite data together are used to produce a gridded analysis of total solar radiation.

Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC)

The CDIAC is the primary global-change data and information analysis center of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). It contains information on concentrations of carbon dioxide and other radioactively active gases in the atmosphere; the role of the terrestrial biosphere and the oceans in the biogeochemical cycles of greenhouse gases; emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere; long-term climate trends; the effects of elevated carbon dioxide on vegetation; and the vulnerability of coastal areas to rising sea level.

Air Quality Forecast Guidance Maps

Twice per day NOAA's National Weather Services publishes digital maps that show national forecasts for ozone, smoke, and dust. Ozone is shown as 1-hour and 8-hour concentrations. Official Air Quality point forecasts, issued by state and local air quality forecasters, along with additional information on air quality can be found under EPA's AIRNow site. Surface and column-averaged concentrations of predicted smoke for large fires are displayed as 1-hour averages, updated each day.

Smoke Forecasting System

The NOAA Smoke Forecasting System integrates satellite information on the location of wildfires with weather data inputs from the North American Mesoscale model and smoke dispersion simulations. The result is a daily prediction of smoke transport and concentration 48 hours into the future. The model also incorporates U.S. Forest Service estimates for wildfire smoke emissions based on vegetation cover. This system is intended as guidance for air quality forecasters and the public for fine particulate matter emitted from large wildfires and agricultural burning, which can elevate concentrations of fine particles to unhealthy levels. Particle pollution can be particularly hazardous for people with asthma and other respiratory illneses.

Air Stagnation Index

Atmospheric pollution manifests itself in many ways, ranging from reduced visibility to dangerous respiratory problems and discomfort. Atmospheric pollution can be gaseous (e.g. ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides) and/or particulate (e.g. soot, dust). The degree of pollution is dependent on a number of factors: source, transport from source, and build up over time through air stagnation. The stagnation index maps show where in the United States air has stagnated, leading to potential impacts on human and environmental health.

Integrated Surface Database

Compiles global hourly and synoptic observations from numerous sources into a single common ASCII format and common data model. Station data available worldwide with some data as far back as 1901. Over 11,000 stations are currently "active" and updated daily. Includes many parameters such as wind speed & direction, wind gust, temperature, dew point, cloud data, sea level pressure, altimeter setting, station pressure, present weather, visibility, precipitation amounts for various time periods, snow depth, and more.

Comparative Climatic Data

These data tables of meteorological elements outline the climatic conditions at major weather observing stations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Pacific Islands. The data are from observing sites presently in use or include data from former sites that are comparable in exposure. Stations having less than 3 years of data for the current operating site are omitted from the tables of observed data.

Local Climatological Data

A monthly summary from major airport weather stations that includes a daily account of temperature extremes, degree days, precipitation and winds. Also included are the hourly precipitation and abbreviated 3-hourly weather observations.

Regional Snowfall Index

NOAA produces the Regional Snowfall Index (RSI) for significant snowstorms that impact the eastern two-thirds of the United States. The RSI ranks snowstorm impacts on a scale from 1 to 5, similar to the Fujita scale for tornadoes or the Saffir-Simpson scale for hurricanes.

U.S. Snow Climatology

Here you can access snowfall and snow depth statistics for several thousand non-airport stations in the National Weather Service (NWS) Cooperative (COOP) Network across the contiguous U.S. and Alaska. Data are available for daily, monthly, and seasonal snowfall and snow depth totals, which are useful in economic and engineering decision-making, and provide the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with an objective basis for declaring federal snow disasters.

Tornado Climatology

This online resource examines tornado activity across the United States across temporal and spatial scales. The contiguous United States is the most active tornado region in the world, with an average of 1,253 tornadoes occurring annually. The information and data provided here serves as a baseline for comparing current tornado activity to the past, providing a complete historical perspective.

Severe Weather Data

This online resource provides links to several NOAA online severe weather databases, including the Storm Events Database and the Severe Weather Data Inventory. These databases provide online access to files for storm and hurricane data in commonly used formats, such as shapefiles for GIS applications, KMZ for Google Earth, comma-separated values, and extensible markup language (XML).

North America Climate Extremes Monitoring

This tool was developed to improve understanding of changes in extreme climate conditions by giving users an ability to examine trends and occurrences of certain types of extreme or threshold events at a station-by-station level. It currently provides data and analysis for eight indices that have been defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). An interactive map allows users to select a month, season, or specific year (from 1955 to present) to view a snapshot of values for a specific index across North America.

Climate Extremes Index

The Climate Extremes Index charts the occurrence of specific extreme events in the United States from 1910 to present. In most cases, extreme events are defined as being in the outermost (“most unusual”) ten percent of a place’s history. Extreme event indicators tracked include monthly maximum and minimum temperature, daily precipitation, drought severity index, and tropical storm wind velocity. Analyses are available at the national and regional levels.

Storm Data

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center issues monthly storm data containing a chronological listing, by states, of storm occurrences and unusual weather phenomena. Reports contain information on storm paths, deaths, injuries, and property damage. An "Outstanding storms of the month" section highlights severe weather events with photographs, illustrations, and narratives. Users may also search the NCDC Storm Event database to find various types of storms recorded in your county or use other selection criteria as desired.